Nov

26

If someone (the devil, I guess) were to come to me and ask me to come up with the most annoying magazine feature imaginable, I’d be able to reply immediately: Rocky and cheesesteaks, which has the added bonus of sounding really hacky and out of towner as well as being superbly annoying. Then the devil would be like, “You’re cold, man,” and I’d get a golden fiddle.

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Philadelphia magazine devotes its December issue to the 100 moments that have shaped Philadelphia over the last century. Included on the list are the filming of Rocky, the MOVE bombing, the Phillies 2008 World Series victory, and Frank Rizzo becoming police commissioner. But the mag says the single most important moment in Philly history since 1908 was the birth of the cheesesteak.

There are two things anyone who’s lived here more than six months never wants to hear about again: Rocky, and cheesesteaks. This feature is all that with the added bonus of Phillymag being the one who’s doing it.

Check out the top 10 slideshow, which features a No. 10 of “Dilworth & Clark, 1951″ (who could forget that moment!), the results of two baseball games at Nos. 6 and 7 and “the invention of the computer” at No. 4. I’m currently working on a feature about the top moments of the last 1000 years. I’m thinking “printing press invented” at No. 1 and “Mickey Morandini’s unassisted triple play” at No. 2.

Discussion Questions
1. Why is the Phillies’ 2008 World Championship more important than the Eagles’ back-to-back NFL titles in 1948-49? How about the Athletics’ 5 titles? Where should the Athletics’ 107-45 (!) season and subsequent loss in the World Series in 1931 rate?

2. Does the inclusion of the MOVE Bombing at number two make the top 10 less white, or does it actually somehow make it even whiter?

3. Throwing snowballs at Santa in 1968 is definitely on this list, since it’s right up there with Rocky and cheesesteaks in terms of annoyance. Where do you think it ranks?

4. It was pretty awesome when the Big 5 started playing a full round robin season again back in the late 90s. When Phillymag does another version of this list in another 100 years, where will Drexel joining the Big 5 (expected date: 2065) rank?

If Phillymag’s blog had posted a link to a slideshow of past covers the blog post would have been something like, “Phillymag does pretty neat anniversary look back thingy oh how neat old-timey journalizin’!” Of course, I would not recommend rolling out your products in ways geared to impress me; that would probably be a bit of a waste.